


If Two Of Them Are Dead

by black_lodge



Series: The Eighth Year [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Canon Rewrite, Dark, F/M, dub-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-10
Updated: 2016-06-10
Packaged: 2018-07-14 07:37:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7160360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/black_lodge/pseuds/black_lodge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snape needs someone who has been to the Department of Mysteries. Hermione can help. But when their mission takes a terrible turn, can he bring himself to help her?</p>
            </blockquote>





	If Two Of Them Are Dead

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to LaviniaLavender for beta-reading this!

The boys had just begun to snore -- Harry in a quiet, regular drone; Ron like a band saw with a wobble -- and that was Hermione's cue. Silently throwing up a ward around her cot, she opened the mouth of her little beaded bag and whispered into it: "Headmaster Black, I'm here. Any messages?"

The portrait's voice was muffled but audible. "Yes, he wants to speak to you directly!"

And then before she could even think of a reply, _his_ voice came through.

"Miss Granger, are you alone?"

"More or less," she replied to the disembodied voice of her potions professor; and, because she knew the question was on his lips, "The boys are asleep and I've put up a silencing charm."

"I need you to apparate to London. Can you do that from where you are?"

Hermione resisted the urge to snort. She hadn't told him that she'd successfully performed transatlantic apparation before -- twice. Some secrets, she was of the opinion, should be kept until the optimal moment. "Yes," she said simply.

"Good. Apparate in to 12 Grimmauld Place. I've secured the building and I'll explain everything when you arrive."

"Yes sir. Thank you, Headmaster Black," she added in chorus with Professor Snape. They'd discovered Phineas Nigellus was infinitely more biddable if they observed routine etiquette protocols.

Hermione cinched her bag shut and sighed. It had been a quiet day, one which she'd spent most of hunting for mushrooms and nuts with the boys. She was tired. But if she were honest with herself, the thought of an actual job to do was exciting, no matter how worn out she was, no matter that it was with Snape.

Sometimes she thought about how much she’d changed over the past few months of their Horcrux hunt. The Hermione Granger of the beginning of the year wouldn’t have dreamed of this kind of covert arrangement. That Hermione, the girl who cared so much about notes and tests and the sovereignty of rules, would be astounded by all of this. But she didn’t know when she’d stopped being that version of herself. She didn’t know when she’d become a person to hide things from her two best friends, but she knew that if Harry ever found out that she was checking in regularly with Snape, he wouldn’t give her time to explain.

They couldn’t afford the explosion such a revelation would ignite.

She put on fresh underthings, wiggled back into her trousers, found a long-sleeved t-shirt that wasn't too filthy, and shoved her feet into her trainers. There was nothing else she could do with her hair; she hadn't been keeping up with it at all since they went on the run, and it looked least offensive when bound back, so she never took it down to begin with. She Summoned her jacket and held on to her wand and disappeared with a pop that was muffled by her silencing charm.

 

* * *

 

Severus was waiting in the main hall of the house of Black when the crack of Granger's apparation sounded behind him. He turned on his heel and found himself momentarily lost for words. The last time he'd seen Granger, months ago, she'd been a round-faced schoolgirl with a mass of hair like an overgrown tumbleweed, unmistakable for anything but what she was, and that, in Severus' opinion, was a swot. The person before him now, however, resembled the schoolgirl only in general shape. Her face had thinned and darkened with freckles, her eyes were shadowed with dark anemic circles, her hair had been ruthlessly subdued in a thick braid. She seemed smaller without the flapping bulk of her school robes -- and he realized, too, that he'd never seen her dressed like a Muggle.

"Professor Snape?"

Severus straightened, his impassive face not betraying his vague consternation. "Miss Granger. At last.”

She furrowed her brow, evidently put out by the implication that she’d dawdled. “What do you need me for?”

He blinked at her and cleared his throat in lieu of answering. "I need to break into the Department of Mysteries."

She nodded once. "Alright. What can I do?"

"You will be navigator. You've been there before, and there's the distinct advantage that you aren't laboring under the misconception that I'm loyal to the other cause."

She twisted her mouth to the side. "I think I can do that."

"You _think_ you can?"

Her chin tipped up. "Okay, I _know_ I can do it. Well, it depends on where you want to go. And I should really go in disguise, don't you think --"

"Don't put the horse before the cart, Granger," he said, and then ushered her into the kitchen.

Over sandwiches and black coffee, which she sipped carefully and relaxed into as if it had been a year since her last cup, he explained the plan. It was straightforward. Get in, steal a certain prototype, get out. Preferably with a minimum of casualties or witnesses. He knew the security detail, the wards and hexes guarding the room once he got there.

"I can get you there," said Granger, fully self-assured now. He was surprised how unfazed she was by the whole business, but he didn't let it show; she'd need to be a lot more than merely unflappable if this were to succeed. "When are we going?"

"As soon as you're disguised."

She blinked at him. "What -- now?"

His lips thinned. "You know what's at stake if the Dark Lord acquires this technology. He has no compunctions about creating paradoxes, if I might remind you -- "

"I know that," she interrupted. "But why all of a sudden?"

"Bellatrix reports there's been a breakthrough in development, meaning it's ready much sooner than I anticipated. I simply don't have time to wait for a time that's more _convenient_ for you, Granger!"

"No need to get shirty," she said irritably. "I was just curious.”

“Curiosity killed the cat,” Severus murmured, sipping his coffee, watching the color bloom across her features. She’d tightened like a knot, and at length she glanced away, appearing to steel herself. He watched as she straightened up and very deliberately uncrossed her arms. She met his eyes again, this time with a challenge in her expression.

“Do you want to do my disguise or shall I?"

He realized that the tightness in the way she held herself had nothing to do with being in his presence -- he'd spent enough years terrorizing students to know when their guardedness was inspired by fear of him. As irritated as she was, she wasn’t afraid of him. She simply looked _ready._

He found himself approving, which was an altogether uncommon feeling.

"I'll do yours and you do mine," he said, and drew his wand.

 

* * *

 

The thought crossed her mind ever so briefly to use the Stinging Hex to disguise him. It'd certainly work -- and if Ron ever found out he'd probably canonize her -- but what a thought. Instead, she focused on changing his skin tone, the thickness and height of his eyebrows, the fullness of his face and mouth, and his nose, which she shrank and shaped into something quite unremarkable. His hair she vanished.

"No, leave some," he grunted; "a bald spot is no good for covert ops."

" _Covert ops,_ " she repeated. His scowl was swiftly hidden by a full black beard which sprouted at the same time as the hair on top of his head.

"I _am_ a spy,” he said, bracing with defensiveness.

"Straight out of a cheesy cop show, sounds like," she said under her breath, prodding her wand at his hands, which were swiftly furred over.

"What the hell are you turning me into, a werewolf?"

She put her hands on her hips and admired her handiwork. "That's you done," she said instead of answering his question.

"Let's see if you're that smug when you're through," he growled, and turned his wand on her.

When he was finished they went out to the mirror in the front hall.

"You made me into a neanderthal," he said flatly, adjusting the fit of his robes.

"You turned _me_ into an old lady," she retorted. "Thanks for that. Do these liver spots come with genuine arthritis?"

"Don’t be cheeky, Granger; we haven't got time for you to develop a sense of humor just now. Let's go."

 He Side-Along'd her from the front hall. At the other end of the claustrophobic sucking tunnel was a miserable alley.

“I _have_ a sense of humor,” Granger was saying reproachfully the moment they appeared. Next to them was a rubbish bin that smelled like old fish. Their abrupt appearance startled an old drunk who was busy pissing against the wall; he squawked and fumbled to conceal his exposed genitals.

"Fuck," she heard Snape say as he pushed her through a heavily graffitied metal door.

"He's so drunk, it's not like he'll even remember --"

"Shut up and walk, Granger."

They were in a grotty little pub illuminated almost entirely by beer lights. A band on a wooden riser was generating enough noise to wake the dead, but she had no time to think about it; Snape was stalking toward the back of the pub. She followed him into the men's loo.

"Oh, disgusting," she said in a voice of dismay, folding her arms around herself to avoid touching any of the surrounding surfaces.

"Don't be a child, and hurry up, now."

He held open the door of a toilet stall in an incongruously gentlemanly gesture.

" _Please_ don't tell me I have to put my feet in the toilet bowl," she said, remembering Harry's stories about visiting the Ministry.

"For Christ's sake," growled Snape, and he flicked his hand at the stall, sanitizing it instantly.

Hermione knew better than to argue with the look on his face, even if it was someone else's face. She clambered up onto the rim and, suppressing a gagging noise, down into the bowl. “No wonder he used the alley instead,” she said to herself, but was surprised to hear him snort.

To compound her surprise, instead of flushing her on her way, he climbed up after her, but then she figured he didn’t want her to go ahead and risk landing alone in a situation she was unprepared for. It was a good thought, but it was no small feat for two adults to squeeze into a toilet bowl together; Hermione found herself especially thankful that he'd sanitized the stall when she had to brace herself against the partition behind her.

Looming over her and hanging onto the top edge of the stall behind her head, he cast another wordless, wandless spell, and Hermione felt something _activate_ beneath her.

"Twilight phase override," he said by way of explanation, and then he reached for the old-fashioned pull chain. "Hang on tight."

Her arms went around his waist, he yanked down on the old-fashioned pull chain, and away they went.

 

* * *

 

The most vulnerable point of their journey was already behind them, and Severus felt optimistic. Granger, her squeamishness notwithstanding, was battle-ready and even more alert than when she was brewing the most complex of the sixth-year curriculum potions. She lead the way through the expansive black hall of the atrium to one of the black iron lifts.

"Ninth floor," Hermione told the lift, and it shuddered into life and began to descend.

The ding of the lift as it passed each floor was unbearably loud.

When it finally eased to a halt, the doors slid open on a wide room filled with doors. Torches glowing with blue-white light made the black marble walls gleam like glass; his and Granger's reflections flickered over the bricks like ghosts.

Granger paused in the middle of the room, a look of concern crossing her face.

"What is it?" he asked.

"The doors move so you can never tell which is which," she said. "I think it'll have to be trial and error."

She moved forward and pushed open the first door she came to, but backed out hurriedly. "Brain room," she said with a shiver. "Next."

She moved from one door to the next. Each opened at a touch with the exception of one.

"Love room," she told him shortly, before going to the next door. It opened at a brush of her hand, and when she peeked in she nodded decisively.

"This is it, Professor."

He followed her in.

It was a long hall filled with sparkling blue and gold lights emanating from a huge bell jar at the end of the room. Granger seemed to be doing her best to focus, but he noticed the slight tightening of her fists as if she were physically repressing her instinctive curiosity. On either side of a long, black, marble pathway stood plinths of the same black marble. Most held nothing.

"They were all destroyed in the battle," she whispered to him. Something about the darkness of the room encouraged solemnity.

"They've been working on a new one," he told her. "It's -- there."

He pointed at a tiny gold object sitting on a pedestal at the far end of the room. They both made a beeline for it.

"That _is_ odd," said Granger, bending down to peer at it. "Look, it has two more rings -- week and month, I suppose?"

"Month and year," said Severus. With the cuff of his sleeve he swept the Time-Turner off the plinth and into a pouch he had prepared especially for it.

"But the Ministry outlawed that kind of time travel after -- ah. Never mind."

Severus smirked. Evidently she'd remembered who currently held the ministry's reins.

"Is that it?" she asked.

"Yes. Let's go."

It was when they returned to the room of the doors that the first curse blazed toward them.

 

* * *

 

Suddenly it was pandemonium. Hermione instinctively flung herself out of the way -- just like DA training, breaking her fall with her forearm and thigh, rolling herself over, using her momentum to spring back to her feet. Her wand was already out by then, whipping off hexes as fast as she could think.

There were three of them. Snape was tangled up with two men; the third, a woman, was bearing down on Hermione, flaring a deadly grin.

The first hit Hermione landed on her was a Babbling Curse. The other woman's mouth immediately twisted up as she tried to regain control over her tongue, and it was the edge Hermione needed. She hit her with a Body-Bind and then moved on to help Snape.

She hadn't time to watch him, but the glimpse she got of him dueling was an awe-inspiring sight to behold. He used his body like charms experts used their wand -- twisting and turning, flicking and darting. He used the fabric of his dark grey cloak to distract his opponent and, as Hermione noted when one hex bounced off the fabric, to protect himself from lesser jinxes.

Suddenly and forcefully she was reminded of Viktor Krum, of the way his earthbound gracelessness melted away when he was in his true element.

It was only a split second’s hesitation, but then one of the others wizards spotted her and leapt to engage her.

A Stinging Hex shot past her face, singeing her cheek; she retorted with a silent Confundus. Her opponent blocked it and just as she landed her Tongue-Tying curse, he hit her with a disarmer.

Her wand jerked out of her hand and soared across the room, but it wasn't too late yet. She flung out a hand and with everything she had left she hurled the man across the room.

His body crashed through one of the doors and was gone.

As the doors began to spin around them, Hermione fell to her knees, wordlessly summoning her wand from across the room.

"Look out!"

It was Snape's voice. Hermione didn't even see the curse that hit her, but she knew it had to be from the woman. The Babbling Curse had just worn off.

The force of the curse knocked her forward and her body began to suffuse with heat radiating from her gut.

Before the rolling electric pulses swarmed rational thought from her brain, she saw the chasm opening up in the floor between Snape and his opponent.

 

* * *

 

Severus danced back on his toe-tips to escape the lip of the rapidly expanding chasm. With a whispered, secret spell, he sprang high in the air. He hoped to god that it wasn’t obvious what he’d done, or else his cover was blown.

When he landed he had gained a three-second lead on the approaching chasm. He he firmly planted his left heel to brace against the recoil and sent an ear-splitting shockwave hex at the other Death Eater.

Disoriented and deafened by the blow, the other man staggered straight into his own Bottomless Pit charm, which promptly closed up and vanished.

Then Severus spun and hurtled across the room to her. The body-bind was wearing off the other woman. Severus Vanished her without even thinking about it.

He was on his hands and knees next to Granger in no time. She had twisted onto her back and was straining and gasping, little wrinkled face rigid with pain.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," he hissed, flicking his wand over her contorted form. He only knew a couple of diagnostics; one told him that dark magic was still actively coursing through her; one told him her brainwaves were rocketing off the charts; another reported that her heart rate was at 170 and her temperature was slightly elevated -- but it didn't tell him what was actually _wrong_ with her.

Severus' own heart was pounding, too. " _Finite incantatem!"_ he whispered, instantly melting away her disguise, but other than that there was no immediate change in her physiological reactions.

 _"_ Granger," he said. He didn't want to touch her in case the hex was communicable. He started casting every countercurse that wouldn't make her condition worse. " _Granger,_ can you answer me?"

She keened in response, shuddering, and something seemed to break in her. Her back arched and she went completely rigid like that, rippling with unseen shocks. Her eyes were shut tight.

He didn't have a choice. They had to get to the apparition point. He hefted her up -- noting that it took far less effort than it should; she weighed hardly anything -- and slung her over his shoulder in a fireman's carry.

The lift was waiting, and by the time they entered and he instructed it to take them to the ground level, her full-body shivers had ceased and her limbs had regained something of their independence. She fidgeted weakly and he let her slide down. She stumbled away from him, leaning heavily on the wall of the lift, her breathing harsh and perspiration visible on her forehead.

"Granger, there's twenty seconds before we need to run for it. Can you do that?"

She whimpered. He held himself still, mentally as well as physically, diverting magical energy to his Occlumency shields. No point if he panicked. _Keep it together._

"Where's it hurt? I can numb it, just until we get out. It's all I can --"

"Doesn't hurt." She spoke nonetheless through gritted teeth. Her eyes were squeezed shut and her cheeks bright.

Severus blinked at her. "What? Are you _sure_ -?"

Her eyes popped open. Her pupils were dilated and her look was urgent and -- whatever it was, it definitely wasn't pain. Her hand grasped blindly toward him, latched onto his shoulder. Under the thin fabric of her t-shirt he could see her nipples in sharp relief.

"Ye-e-ssss," she managed in a throaty timbre that hit him straight in the gut before settling in somewhere lower.

He recoiled, cursing softly. The klaxon-sound of horror sawed through him.

The lift came to a halt and the doors opened at the ding.

Then they were running through the cavernous black atrium.

He didn't have a moment to think about it but, fuck, he _thought about it_ as he pulled her against him for the Side-Along to Spinner's End.

Apparition squeezed a body in unpleasant ways ordinarily; adding another person to the mix was a disturbing violation of personal space if you weren't prepared for it. For a split-second Granger was sucked alongside him through a vacuum the approximate diameter of a macaroni noodle, her feverish body partially melded to his until the apparition wormhole spat them out on the other end.

She sagged against him as they reappeared in his shabby little sitting room in Cokeworth, and he felt his own knees wobble. For one wild moment he felt her hips grind forward, and he suddenly found it hard to breathe.

Doing his best to override the impulses of his limbic system, he dumped her unceremoniously on the worn tartan couch before darting to one of the bookshelves that lined the room. He swiped a row of books aside into a magically extended invisible shelf to access a second, hidden row, a handful of neglected tomes he'd rather avidly collected as a much younger man.

He was excruciatingly aware of the girl behind him on his sofa, breathing raggedly and fidgeting. _Focus, you randy bastard,_ he thought as his fingers raced through pages. _Sex hexes, countercurses to. 439-449._

With trembling hands he scanned the contents of the chapter. Lots of nasty curses -- but nothing about -- well --

For Christ's sake, it wasn't really the kind of spell that most people would _want_ to counter. Whatever it was.

He shoved the book back into its hidey-hole and covered it up again before turning on his heel. " _Fucking_ hell. Granger, get up. We have to go to Hogwarts."

The way she moaned in response caused a fresh veil of sweat to form on his forehead. She was in a foetal position on his couch, head straining to one side, eyes glazy, cheeks a well-slapped red. "Come on. Up, you stupid girl, let's go."

She barely noticed him until he bent down and lifted up her arms to urge them around his neck. Her fingers dug into his robes and she clung to him like a little climbing vine.

"Up, that's it, let's go. Feet on the floor." He was muttering nonsense, he knew. "I'm apparating us to Hogwarts. Hold on."

"Can't," she moaned, her voice breaking.

"You bloody well can, come on--"

"Can't apparate into Hogwarts," she panted, and he felt an absurd urge to laugh.

Instead of arguing with her, he adjusted his grip on her waist and executed the spell, bracing himself for the press of her body against his.

 

* * *

 

 

The next moment, the Headmaster's Office was materializing around them and the Granger girl was sliding out of his arms, crumpling to the floor at his feet with a yowl like a cat in heat. It shouldn't have been so erotic, but --

" _Pro--fes--sor...."_

Ignoring of the cacophony of shocked and angry voices from the portraits that covered the walls -- most of all Dumbledore’s -- he flung off his traveling cloak, yanked the pouch with the Time-Turner out of his pocket and set it on the nearest flat surface, and then sank to his knees to perform the diagnostics again. Heart rate and breath rate still highly elevated, and her body temperature was through the roof. That, at least, he could help. When he cast the cooling charm on her, her eyes popped open and she stared at him, evidently trying to master her panic. When she reached out to grip his forearm she seemed to be trying to communicate her gratitude.

Her lashes began to flutter and her eyes rolled back, tightening her grip on his arm with a soft whimper. One of her legs kicked out.

He yanked himself out of her grip and shot toward the water closet so fast he stumbled. Once inside, he turned the cold water on full throttle and splashed his face liberally; then he ran a washrag under the water.

His reflection in the mirror was alien to him -- water soaking a black beard and beading on a low brow. He ended the spell with a snap of his wand and he was looking at himself again, high spots of color in otherwise waxen cheeks.

"Fucker," he hissed to himself, and stalked back into the office.

To his relief, she was looking slightly more composed, sitting with her back against the front of his desk, arms around her bent knees. She seemed to be concentrating on her breathing. She glanced up when he entered and he saw the color rise again to her cheeks, but this time out of sheer embarrassment instead of arousal. So he hoped.

“Severus, what the devil is going on?” Dumbledore demanded from his gilded frame behind the desk. “Why is Miss Granger here?”

Severus crossed the room and handed Granger the wet washcloth, careful not to touch her. “Albus, I haven’t time to chat. Granger, I have to go to the library," he added, backing off. "There might be something in the Restricted Section that will help."

"I'm coming with you," she said immediately, pressing the cloth gratefully against her face and then her throat.

"Out of the question. You will stay here."

“Severus, why is the girl here at all?” Dumbledore said. “Why isn’t she with Harry Potter?”

"Harry is fine, Headmaster,” Granger said, voice breaking a little. To Severus, she said, “What if it changes? The curse. Neither of us knows what it is, so we can't tell if it's going to -- destabilize."

He growled in frustration. "You're _already_ destabilized, Granger." But he saw her point, and she knew it, judging by the look she gave him. And he wasn’t keen on leaving her in the office to be interrogated by the portrait of his predecessor, who was rather inclined to micromanage affairs even in death.

"Alright, get up. But listen to me." He watched her clamber to her feet, bracing herself against the edge of his desk. "Be very, very quiet, Miss Granger. The Carrows are patrolling tonight and if they catch you -- especially in this condition -- do you understand?"

He sought out her eyes. They were glossy, pupils blown a velvety black, but clear.

"Do you understand?" he repeated sharply.

She nodded.

He tapped her head to Disillusion her and performed the same spell on himself before heading to the spiral staircase. She held tight to his arm, as much to support herself as to keep track of where he was. Well -- he could hardly say he blamed her, but the sharp edge of panic drove under the lush bloom of desire that threatened to weigh him down in syrupy languor.

He could think while they walked.

This was bad. Beyond bad. If he hadn't dealt with Regina by Vanishing her, he'd be sorely tempted to go back and take her apart bit by bit. He hadn't known her well, but he'd heard a thing or two about her habits. Using a sex hex to disorient an opponent in battle was both effective and humiliating, which was why it was popular among Death Eaters, especially those in the lower ranks and anyone who came from the fringes of wizarding society. Those well acquainted with the sting of humiliation leap at the opportunity to inflict the same on others.

As he well knew.

But in a duelling situation where there was something real at stake, most Death Eaters went for the decisive reliability of more traditional battle spells. Humiliation was saved for when you could savor it.

Anger flashed through him like lightning. Anger not just at Regina, at the Death Eaters in general, but at himself for getting Granger in this situation in the first place. At Dumbledore, for recruiting fucking children for his cause. At Granger herself, whose silence as she trotted along beside him felt like sullen condemnation. Of course he'd had his role to play in this fiasco, but she _knew_ what this war entailed, damn it. Maybe not the specifics, but still -- she could've fucked off to Australia with her Muggle parents, saved her own skin.

(The voice in his head that sounded too much like Minerva's began to counter that Hermione Granger would _never_ abandon her friends -- and he steamrolled over that reasoning with a great gust of disdain. Gryffindors, bloody Gryffindors and their idiotic, affect-driven, pig-headed martyrdom! As if a corpse's noble intentions ever did any good --)

By the time they reached the doors of the library, he'd successfully staved off blind panic with sheer contempt.

 

* * *

 

 

Hermione had never gotten the chance to enjoy free access to the Restricted Section. If she'd had the emotional energy, she would've spent a moment feeling wistful. This year she should have been appointed Head Girl; she'd have had all the time in the world to explore. But now here she was: past midnight, shivering with the after-effects of nine (or was it ten? she'd lost count) orgasms, hanging on to Professor Snape's arm as he led the way through the shadowy library to the section on sex magic.

She might have been the cleverest witch of her age, but nothing had prepared her for this. There wasn't a thing in her little beaded bag that could solve this nightmare of a problem.

And she wasn't up to the task of tackling the problem herself. Her brain was shivering like television static. Her clitoris felt numb and raw all at once, her vulva swollen and excruciatingly reactive, her abdomen heavy, and her arms and legs were wrung out like dishrags. She was too exhausted to be embarrassed. She just felt empty, _wanting._

She was distantly aware that Snape was standing above her, rifling through stacks of books. At some point she'd slumped to the floor next to him while he searched for a way to terminate the hex coursing through her blood.

Her arousal had been simmering for the past five minutes, and to keep it that way she tried to focus her mind on something concrete. Something real. _The room with the books._ The little place he’d taken her to first. She shut her eyes and recreated it in her mind: tiny and very dark, almost claustrophobic. She inhaled, remembering the musty smell, as if the place had been closed up for a long time. The books that covered every wall. Where had he taken her? There had been no visible personal effects anywhere -- Hermione’s photographic memory assured her that was the case -- but by process of elimination, which took longer than it should’ve, she guessed it had to be his house. Snape’s house.

_He took me to his house._

Suddenly the thought struck her that Snape was _poor_ . The thought almost bowled her over, but it was true: the furnishings had been ancient and threadbare and obviously Muggle. She had been perplexed by a beige plastic television set that looked at least thirty years old, apparently being used as an end table next to the armchair. How long had he _lived_ there?

Judging by the state of the place, she doubted he spent much time there any longer -- his personal appearance notwithstanding, he was markedly fastidious about his surroundings at the very least, and that tiny wretched place reeked of poverty and fear.

Unbidden, her mind supplied her with the image of Snape sitting alone in that tatty armchair, and she felt her insides well up with sympathetic pain at the thought of how little his decades of self-sacrifice had earned him.

Hermione hissed as that indistinct swollen feeling coalesced, sparked, sharpened, began to sear through her again, blistering nerves that should have been all but cauterized by now. She clapped a hand over her mouth.

"I'm alright, it's okay," she whispered, words muffled, when she felt him still next to her.

He moved on, picking up the pace, rifling through pages and muttering to himself, oblivious to the klaxons going off in her head.

Obviously she couldn't control her autonomic response, shanghaied as it was by the curse, but for a second it had felt like -- surely it was just a coincidence, but it _felt_ like this magically boosted shockwave of arousal had been triggered by the thought of _him._

But that was absurd.

Dizzy with desire, she somehow managed to get to her feet. Maybe pacing would help. Shake off some of the energy. Delay the inevitable. That's it.

Oh. Oh, _no._ Nope, that wasn't helping _at all._ A woozy giggle escaped her before she could cover her mouth.

Snape rounded on her, his face twisted with anger and what looked distinctly like panic. "Silence, you little fool!" he hissed.

"I'm sorry! I can't --" She squeezed her eyes shut, blocking out the sight of him. She was trembling on the verge, but it wouldn't -- she just _couldn't_ \--  "Please, Professor, _please,_ I can't he-elp -- ngghh --”

He threw a silencing charm up around them and stepped toward her.

 

* * *

 

She was so close.

He could smell her. She reeked like sex, raw and sweet and bloody, a scent that hit his brain and sent him reeling into bittersweet fragmented memories of teenaged summers. And he was becoming familiar with the signs: flexing her hips, tossing her head unconsciously, forehead contracting in a disturbingly familiar way -- the exact same way, in fact, that it did when she was thinking hard about an exam question.

But she was never this noisy in class, hand-waving comments aside. The closer she got, the noisier she became. But once she -- peaked -- well, there seemed to be a kind of refractory period.

And he knew he was already going to hell.

He snapped the book shut and shoved it back on the shelf, knocking several books down on the opposite side judging by the noisy thumps. He hauled Granger around by the arm. Head swimming with the impossibility of the situation and his own humid surge of arousal, he wedged his thigh between hers.

Instantly she clamped down around it, clawing him closer, her hips rocking eagerly against his trousers. He stumbled forward, pressing her against the shelves, and for a moment she lost contact with his thigh, but then his hip bone notched up into her perfectly. She was gasping, hips twisting, and when she tried and failed a third time to get a purchase on him she whined in frustration.

"Profess--"

"For Christ's sake _don't_ ," he said hoarsely, seizing her thighs and hitching her up against the shelves to guide them around his waist, "call me professor." And then there they were, her ankles locking at the small of his back, his broad hands clenched in the firm flesh of her arse. He leaned forward with his hips, pinning her to the shelves, and then whatever fire was coursing through her veins caught him alight, too . His hips moved instinctively against her and he did what he could to stop. He’d help her get off, but by Merlin he was _not_ going to -- _actively participate_.

Between the seam of her trousers and the agonizing hardness of his cock she found the perfect combination of pressure and friction. Severus blitzed out for a second at the intensity of direct stimulation, but he had no time to savor the shocking heat, as much good as it would do his conscience later, or the wetness he could feel through multiple layers of garments -- for in just a few seconds she came shaking apart, thighs clenching around his waist, eyes shut, hot little mouth open against the hand he stifled her cries with, and for a moment the proximity of her ecstasy was unbearably sweet.

The aftershocks finally sputtered out and her legs went limp around him. He assisted her slide to the floor, his thigh muscles trembling with the effort. He was hard as rock.

_Fucking Christ._

She wasn't letting him go.

 

* * *

 

 

When he was reasonably sure she could move again, he jiggled her in his arms to rouse her. "Let's go."

She struggled to lift her head from his chest. "Did you find..."

“I said let’s _go_ . And for once in your life, _shut up_ , Granger."

He helped her stand, pushed her ahead of him, feeling the silencing charm shimmer around them as they passed through it. He propelled her through the stacks, down the stairs, and out the door of the library, and when they reached the hallway, he sped them up, Disillusioning them again as they went.

He led her through the halls, his grip bruisingly tight on her upper arm. His strides were so long she had to trot to keep up, but he didn't slow down.

_Best to get this over with. Get it over and done with, get her out, and then go practice some active self-loathing for the rest of your natural life._

He hadn't had a partner in... years, it had to be, a shocking number of years. His role in the war didn't leave him with much time for developing intimacies, and even if it had, he wouldn't wish his life of lies on anyone. As for short-term trysts, he'd long ago determined that he was most comfortable being a right arsehole, which didn't endear him to anyone; so he tended to regard any advances, overt or otherwise, as opportunistic at best. Furthermore, he knew from past experience that his heart was hasty in forming -- sentimental attachments. He was better without those. So he made no advances of his own. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to call it a monkish existence.

Yet here he was, leading one of the school's prized pupils to his bedroom. He wasn’t sure if the roiling in his stomach was horror at what he was about to do, or -- even more horrifying -- anticipation.

She followed him up the spiral staircase, past the dimly-lit office filled with snoring portraiture into the chambers above. Through the ornate sitting room he never used -- still filled with his predecessor's tchotchkes -- to a closed door. He paused before it and turned to look down at her.

"Do you trust me, Miss Granger?"

Even in the candlelight her flushed cheeks looked vivid. Her teeth crushed her lower lip and he tried not to notice the fitful way she was rubbing her thighs together. "With my life."

He exhaled through his teeth.

"More's the fucking pity."

He pushed open the door and let her enter before him.

 

* * *

 

 

A few thick pillar candles and oil lamps flickered to life as the door shut behind him. Granger gazed slowly around the circular room -- at the heavily draped windows, emerald green brocade appearing jet black in the candlelight -- and at the platform that dominated the center of the room, upon which rested an enormous, ancient four-poster bed that looked like it had been built to withstand siege warfare.

Then she turned back to him, standing between him and the bed. They stood staring at each other for a long moment. He was breathing as hard as she was, but he disguised it better.

"I cannot guarantee it will _work_ ," he began. His mouth was so dry his voice cracked mid-sentence.

She shook her head, almost irritably, as if uninterested in his explanation. But he couldn't -- he had to -- there wasn't any way he was going to get through this if he didn't _try_ to make it right.

"Such curses are used either – recreationally, or they are used in battle to debase the victim. They are -- most of them don't have a countercurse as such. Just... the only way...."

She was beginning to sway on her feet. A tidal wave of oily black despair washed over him, flattening his resolve and sweeping away his faculties, leaving him helpless and exposed to the swift approach of lust.

She reached out a hand and pressed it gently against his chest. "It's okay."

Desire reared up above him and crashed down, drenching him in hazy, glorious certainty.

His fingers found the waistband of her faded jeans. He tugged her forward, left hand joining the right to work her button free. His knuckles pressed against the worn elastic of her pants, the silky soft skin of her belly, and his fingers trembled.

The metallic sound of her zip was obscene.

He almost stopped there. But then her eyes sought out his and before he could help it, her mind was opened to him, almost by force of habit, and just the outer layer, like the first few petals of a rosebud about to bloom. Her desire, boosted to a supernatural strength, was searing; and the next petal sloughed off to reveal cobwebby fear. But beneath that he could detect a certain texture of -- he wasn’t sure, but it seemed --

He braced himself against a flinch as her hands came up to frame his face, brushing his hair back behind his ears. For a moment he thought she might try to kiss him. He had no idea how he could possibly respond to such an overture. It was surreal, even more so when her lips parted and she whispered “ _Please_.”

 _This was happening._ It couldn't be happening, but it was, against all scruples of reason.

All that coiled energy loosed at once. He gripped her by the elbows and steadily backed her up across the room, watching her feverishly fumble at the buttons on his frock coat, then lifting her bodily so she didn't trip on the edge of the platform, and again to hop her up onto the bed. She paused her attack on his clothes and let him push her backward. He got a good grip on the waistband of her denims and pants and tugged once, twice, a third time and they were over the swell of her hips and arse and she was wriggling and kicking them off, leaving her shockingly naked from the waist down. She seemed relieved. He clambered up after her, still almost fully dressed, though he managed to kick his shoes off while she wrenched at the placket of his trousers.

"Oof!"

"Sorry, sorry," she whispered, and then she was pulling him down on top of her and her hot mouth had found his throat and began to _suck._

 _"_ Fuck." A stifled gasp. "Just -- give me a --"

The sound of a belt buckle jingling loose. Fabric rustling, then ripping.

His voice, almost inaudible: "Arright?"

A shaky affirmation. A pause that stretched out almost too long.

At last: simultaneous, anguished groans.

It was over quickly. He barely had time to adjust to the intense heat of her, the swollen tightness, the sloppy wetness that made his thrusting effortless despite his expected rustiness. Her fingers knotted in his hair painfully and her ankles locked around his waist, and he’d just found his stride before she was clenching around him. There was a blooming slick of hot, slippery fluid between them and he turned his face away from her as she dissolved, taking him with her.

When his heart recovered the beats it had skipped, he made to extricate himself from the tangle of her arms, but her legs just tightened around his waist. He drew back just enough to look her in the face. Her eyes were screwed shut, her brows furrowed, high spots of color in her cheeks.

"Just a minute," she breathed. "Just a minute more." Almost imperceptibly, though, she began to loose her hold on his hair.

He let himself relax against her, partly because he was too wrung out to protest. Seemingly assured he wasn't going to withdraw and dash off, she loosened her grip on him. Before he could avoid it, she'd caught his eyes.

There they were, both of them, in the same space and the same moment, breathing the same air, and feeling the same utterly indescribable thing.

He was still half-hard inside her. Intermittently her inner muscles would flicker with a contraction, taking his breath away. Where their bodies joined was an astonishing wetness.

He repressed a shudder. He’d forgotten how filthy sex could be.

Her skin was thick with goosebumps, her complexion blotchy with fading red patches, and she looked so fresh and ripe and youthful he almost couldn't bear it.

He made to draw back again but once more her legs tightened around him. When he looked at her in confusion, she simply bit her lip.

"Alright," he muttered, adjusting her grip around his waist. "Hang on."

With some effort and a swift motion that made them both gasp, he rolled over onto his back, pulling her astride him.

She ended curled up on his chest, cheek pressed against his still-buttoned waistcoat, knees drawn up to flank him, still tight around him. Relieved to no longer be holding himself above her without crushing her, he relaxed back into his pillow and trailed one hand up and down her back, smoothing away goosebumps, feeling new ones rise in their place, listening to her heart and her breath, feeling her sweat starting to dry. She was so thin -- the sharp blades of her scapulae flanked the ridge of her spine, and the thought occurred to him that she was not just his student but in some ways still -- still a child. His thumb found the band of her bra where it dug into her flesh and worried it unconsciously.

He had no idea what to do in this situation, after such a massive (and quite literal) cockup, and he felt paralyzed with indecision. He felt strongly that he should roll her out of bed, send her back to whatever godforsaken place she’d come to him from, but some wee bit of him, what Dumbledore would have called his _conscience,_ urged him to stay put. He’d long ago stopped asking himself _What would Dumbledore do,_ because he found he simply didn’t have the kind of confidence in his moral position to execute plans like his predecessor’s.  And in any case, he had no desire to contemplate what Albus Dumbledore would’ve done if he’d found himself in these particular circumstances.

“Alright?”

He glanced down at the top of Granger’s bushy, albeit adequately restrained hair.  “What?”

“You shivered. And you’re… you’re still….” Instead of finishing her sentence, she squeezed him where he was still buried in her. He didn’t shiver this time so much as flinch. “Is that normal?”

“Is what normal?”

“That you’re still…. Never mind. That’s an awfully nosy question. Sorry.”

“Hmm.” His hand chased the goosebumps that rippled over her back, lacking the energy to do much else. How could she possibly be in a state that she could ask _him_ how _he_ was? Maybe she wanted him to ask her the same, he thought with a rush of clarity, and, feeling somewhat surprised at himself for the instinct -- and a bit self-congratulatory --  he asked, “How do you feel?”

She shifted, rubbing her face against his chest. “I don’t know.”

He didn’t respond, and she interpreted his silence as a solicitation for clarification.

“It doesn’t feel like it did before, not quite,” she said quietly. “That was… inexorable.” She said the word slowly, solemnly. “Like a cauldron constantly on the verge of boiling over.”

“But…?”

“But, now,” she said, glancing up at him, “it doesn’t…  it hasn’t…” She cleared her throat but didn’t look away. “That is, I still feel….”

His hand stilled on her back. Did she want -- was she suggesting --?

He suddenly found himself facing down a choice that barreled toward him like the Hogwarts Express.

What they’d just done together was a matter of necessity. He’d suggested -- consented -- because the alternative for her would’ve been incapacitating at best, given what he knew of sex magic. And if Granger was out of service, Potter didn’t have a moth’s chance in a candle factory at making it through the war alive. The fact that he got so much satisfaction out of his efforts just fed his inner guilt machine, even if he _had_ done it because he could think of no other option, even if it had been the only obligation in years that had yielded him _pleasure._

God damn it, he couldn’t make any kind of decision in this state, especially not when she was looking at him with those tawny, inscrutable eyes.

It was with a great effort of will -- not to mention self-sacrifice -- that he turned over and disengaged her. She rolled onto her back beside him, drawing up her knees, folding her hands demurely over her bare stomach, staring up at the canopy over the bed while Severus surreptitiously wiped himself off and tucked himself back into his trousers. He was still completely dressed except for his missing shoes and a few undone buttons; she only wore her brassiere.

He rubbed his forehead wearily. “You’ll want a salve,” he said, not looking at her. “I can put something together when I make the other potion.” He wasn’t sure what made him offer; perhaps the sight of her curse scar made him want to make up for something.

She turned her head. “Potion?”

He met her eyes – still dilated, hooded by furrowed brows. He merely raised his.

“You mean a contraceptive?”

He indicated yes with a slight thinning of his lips and a jerk of his eyebrows. It amazed him that after everything that had happened in the past hour she still possessed the capacity to blush.

She broke eye contact, glancing up at the canopy again. “That's -- I mean, I'm -- I don't need one. I'm covered."

He didn’t reply for a very long moment. Her lip found its way between her teeth again and her blush seemed to reach a peak, and finally he drawled, “Well. Sounds like your little _camping trip_ has been quite the holiday.” She met his eyes with a flinch as if he’d slapped her, and he added nastily, “Nice to know someone has been wringing a little pleasure out of this war."

Her gasp was genuine and she suddenly struggled to sit up and cover herself at the same time. "You -- It's not like that. We're at war, you -- god -- you should know what happens to women in – _this is what happens!_ " She gave his chest a stinging slap. “What kind of moron would I have been not to prepare for something like this?”

She drew her hand back, ready to strike him again, but he grabbed her wrist, and then her other one. She fought back -- of course she would, the dozy cow -- but in the end he managed to wrestle her back down into a very compromising position.

“Is that what this is?” he hissed. “A fucking war crime? – I’m a lot of things but I’m no rapist, Miss Granger, you insufferable little  –”

“Get _off_ of me, get _off_ \--”

He couldn’t bear the rising note of terror in her voice. He flung her wrists away and rolled over, launching himself out of the bed. He hadn’t gotten two steps when a pillow hit him in the back with a solid _whump._

He rounded on her and she actually shrank back at the look on his face. “WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE HAD ME DO?” he roared. “Let you go _mad_ with it? Just stand there while you rutted yourself to death? Was this --” he indicated himself with a rude gesture -- “really that loathsome that you’d rather _die_ than--”

He managed to catch the next pillow she flung at him.

“Don’t be a complete idiot,” she said shrilly when he had dropped it to the floor. She had whipped the bed cover around her body, tucked it under her arms to preserve what was left of her modesty. “That’s _not_ what I meant. You’re as bad as every other male, jumping to conclusions --”

“What CONCLUSIONS would you prefer I--? It’s not as if I did it for a _lark_ , you carping little chit -- ”

“How _dare_ \--”

“How dare I? How _dare_ I? Take an underfed and bolshy wee _girl-child_ to bed?”

She was starting to cry, and he realized he could hear his own heartbeat pounding in his ears.

“You’re hardly anybody’s idea of a lovely first time, either,” she managed, and he went ice-cold.

He had no response that he trusted himself to utter.

She sank down onto her haunches, fists clenched in her lap. “You don’t have to be so cruel all the time,” she said, sniffing. She was glaring at him, eyes focused on the buttons beneath his throat.

“I am a _cruel man,_ Miss Granger,” he said, but there was no bite in it, none of the acid that usually drenched his tone. “I would expect a person of your faculties to have figured that out sometime in the past seven years.” He plucked up the shirt she’d discarded over the side of the bed and tossed it to her. She might be comfortable with her own nudity but he certainly wasn’t. “Put some clothes on.”

She caught it almost as an afterthought. “Did you just… compliment my _faculties?_ ” she said, shoving her arms into the sleeves and pulling the rest of it over her head.

He gave her a stormy look. “I just told you that I am a cruel man, something which the rest of wizarding Britain has figured out by now.”

“I don't care what you think of yourself,” she said, seizing the bedspread and wrapping herself in it, suddenly demure despite the unexpectedly sudden thoroughness of their acquaintance. “I think you're human enough to exercise a little control over your own _faculties,_ as you say. I will not tolerate your cruelty!”

“Just so,” he snarled, “I will not tolerate your insufferable impertinence!”

“ _You’re_ insufferable!” she cried. “You know what? Out. Get out! If the sight of me is so _abhorrent_ to you.”

“FINE,” he shrieked and stomped out of the room, slamming the door to his own bedchamber behind him.

 

* * *

 

She summoned the rest of her clothes and they sped to her from all directions. After cleansing them with a curt _Tergeo_ she started wiggling back into them. Her mind buzzed like a beehive, the inane mantra _Bloody man, bloody man, bloody man_ cycling over and over above everything else.

Now that she was alone and the adrenaline and arousal were wearing off, she felt blind shock creeping in. She was shivering. Her body ached -- not from what had just occurred in this tower room so much, although she did feel significantly swollen and raw still -- but from the duel in the DoM. Her knees were rosy with fresh bruises that she knew from experience would darken by the next day. She’d pulled a muscle in her shoulder, too.

But that all paled in comparison to what had just happened. She was no stranger to physical or magical violence. But this -- this was an entirely different creature, one that had taken on a life of its own in her head, in her gut, tightening the bands in her chest until taking a deep breath was nearly impossible. There was a sickly sensation that rose in her throat every moment she didn’t actively think about something other than the look on his face, inches away from hers, as his lanky body pressed her down, as he finally entered her. His grimace of agonized pleasure seemed imprinted on the backs of her eyelids -- she could see it, plain as day, every time she blinked.

Once this was all over, she decided -- _really_ over, with You Know Who dead in the ground -- she would have a nice long cry about all of this. But now, she didn’t have time.

Adequately clothed again, she opened the door to summon her jacket, but then she stepped back in surprise as she found Snape standing in the sitting room outside with her jacket in hand and his impassive mask once more in place.

“I should’ve thought to borrow your bath,” she said neutrally as she took it from him.

“You still could.” The Time-Turner gleamed in his palm as he held it out to her.

She stared at him, at first not knowing how to respond to his terse but carefully causal tone. She shook her head finally, taking the device from him with great care and hanging it around her neck. He didn’t respond, but watched her adjust the drape of the gold chain. She glanced up at him, feeling distinctly unbalanced, reading on his face that he felt the same.

“You’d better keep it,” he said. “Don’t let it fall into the wrong hands.”

“Alright.”

“I’ll drop the wards and you can apparate back. Only then can you turn back to when you first left.”

“Alright.”

She tucked the Time-Turner into the collar of her shirt and waited for him to indicate the wards were down.

“Check in at the usual time?” she said finally.

He cleared his throat. “That would be best.”

She nodded once, and then she spun away into darkness.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This story does not end here. It is the prequel to a much longer fic that I'm currently working on. I plan to start serializing it here in the next few months; you can follow my series "The Eighth Year" to get updates.
> 
> Disclaimer: I'm hardly the first person to use Phineas Nigellus Black as a messenger between Hermione and Snape, but I've seen the device appear more and more frequently. Lariope and Grangerous both use it to great effect; I recommend you check out their stories.


End file.
